7. C.C. MAKES HER POINT

C.C. LEFT A SECOND time, flying toward the blurry figure of the Shipwreck, surrounded and gripped by ice. Although Duane had either swam or walked to C.C.’s home countless times, Handsome had never made the journey. For one thing, C.C. had never extended a formal invitation, which was no trifling matter for Handsome. For another thing, swimming was always a big no-no grooming-wise for the musk ox, and walking across the Mainly Frozen Ocean in the winter suggested peril.

“Will the ice support me?” he asked Duane.

“I suppose so,” Duane replied. “You’re not much larger than I am. I could go first, and you could follow, up until any point that the ice cracks beneath me and I fall in the water, in which case you should probably stop following.”

“Agreed,” said Handsome.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Duane that Handsome accepted C.C.’s challenge without argument, despite his fear of risk-taking. Duane pointed this out.

“It’s true. A slip on the ice will not be amusing, nor will a sudden plunge into ice water be invigorating in a good way. But I directed some harsh words toward C.C.,” Handsome explained. “My anger was sincere, but my mind is not closed. I would like to see this proof of hers. Shall we?”

So Duane led his noble friend Handsome across the ocean ice, slowly and unsteadily, with a few precarious missteps, but without any painful mishaps. Ever closer they edged and slid and shimmied toward the Shipwreck, where C.C. was awaiting them. They entered through the gash in the Shipwreck’s bow, then climbed several sets of stairs midway within the boat until they were again outside, on the upper deck.

C.C. was already there, at the back of the ship, in the location ridiculously named the poop deck. Please contain your giggles if you haven’t already done so. The word comes from the original French word poupe, which means stern. My goodness, how does any story involving an old ship get beyond that silly detail, I ask you? To continue, there was C.C., and beside her was a contraption almost as tall as her, made mostly of brass. It sat on a stand and was long and skinny for the most part, with little knobs at the side, and beside it was a stack of small rectangular pieces of glass. As I really do not wish to do any more describing of the object, let me just cut to the chase and say it was a microscope, of which you probably know, but Handsome and Duane did not.

“This is a microscope,” said C.C. right away, thus catching everyone up to speed. “It is a tool of science whose function is to offer hidden insight of the world. It does not try to prove beauty or explain poetry.”

Handsome scrunched his face in an expression of confusion mixed with annoyance. Surely, he hadn’t risked life and limb on the precarious ice only to be shown the exact opposite of what was promised back onshore. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” he said to C.C.

The snowy owl was not done. “Duane the polar bear, I would like you to take one of these slides,” she said, pointing to the stack of glass, “and catch one snowflake upon it. Handsome the musk ox, you stand here, beside the microscope.”

Duane was thrilled to have something to occupy himself with. It reduced his nervous tension considerably. And as tasks go, it was not too difficult. With the snow never ceasing to fall from the sky, simply by extending the glass slide out in front of him he managed to land a flake in very little time. “I’ve caught one!” he shouted.

“Good. Please bring it to me.”

Duane did as he was told. C.C. had him place the slide on a flat part of the microscope called the stage. Suspended straight down above the slide with the snowflake was a tube that contained a lens. It quite resembled a much smaller version of the telescope that C.C. had placed at the front of the ship, to see things that are far away. However, with her microscope, something entirely different was going on. C.C. looked into the top end of the tube, then adjusted a knob to one side, using her beak. She looked again, followed by the adjusting of a second knob. This continued on for longer still until Handsome grew utterly bored.

“Is there any purpose to all this knob twiddling? My delicate fur is developing an icy veneer as I stand here waiting. What is the point?”

“This is the point,” said C.C., inviting him over.

Handsome leaned his head down so that one eye peered through the top end of the microscope. As he did so, C.C. explained. “What you are looking at is a snowflake magnified three thousand times. As you will notice, it is neither round nor soft.”

“Oh my,” gasped Handsome.

“What do you see?” asked Duane with anxious curiosity.

It was difficult for Handsome to speak. What he was witnessing left him literally breathless. “It’s… It’s so beautiful. So delicate and… and perfect.”

C.C. wanted to reiterate that a single snowflake such as the one that Handsome was observing is actually a snow crystal, because a snowflake could mean a bunch of crystals that met in midair and clustered together. But she didn’t point it out because she suspected it wasn’t information that falls under the beauty category.

“I see six branches,” Handsome continued, “all growing from a single point. And each branch has tendrils jutting out along its stem, and each tip holds a six-sided saucer. It is a work of art! It is the poetry at the very heart of life!”

C.C. wanted to point out that crystals refer to any material made of atoms or molecules lined up in a regular pattern. She wanted to explain that the kind of ice crystal Handsome was looking at would be classified as a dendritic crystal with plates at ends. But she didn’t point any of that out because she suspected it wasn’t the kind of poetic information Handsome could appreciate.

“Always six, never more,” she actually did say aloud, because, well, even snowy owls can get their feathers ruffled from time to time when facts go loosey-goosey.

Eventually, after much pleading, Handsome relented and allowed Duane to have a look through the microscope too. Again, there was much oohing and aahing. Once C.C. proposed they look at more samples, the excitement grew even bigger because they soon realized that no two snow crystals were exactly alike.

“Did you see how that last one had needles pointing upward, Handsome?”

“Oh, indeed, Duane. Unlike the previous one, so much simpler, but in perfect harmony.”

“I’ll go catch another! Get ready, C.C.!”

All the while, the snow continued to fall, or dance, as Duane had put it, never in a rush and always with more on the way. The morning hours stretched well into the afternoon, with Duane scrambling eagerly to trap another falling crystal, C.C. adjusting her instrument to bring it into focus, and Handsome swooning at what he observed while choosing the right poetic words to frame it in. At no point did he stop to apologize to C.C. for what he’d said earlier, and at no point did C.C. feel that she wanted an apology. At no point either did Duane stop to give a sigh of relief and acknowledge how things turned out for the better. Because when three friends are so invested in an activity, in the goodwill and laughter it brings, in the warmth of a shared experience that has enveloped the three of them, there is no time to stop. Maybe it is because on these occasions it seems as if time itself has stopped, or as Duane’s armless grandfather clock would tell you, there simply is no time.